South African boxing received a black eye once more after five female ring officials slept at the foyer at Meropa Hotel in Polokwane.
After officiating at the Mama Rocks Boxing Promotions tournament, which started on Friday evening and ended in the early hours of Saturday at Meropa Casino, the tired ring officials, whose names Ink Sport decided not to publish, discovered that no rooms had been booked for them.
“We slept in the foyer as no rooms were booked for us. This is a shame, female officials being treated like this. Female officials being neglected like this in a Women’s Series,” one of the ring officials said.
Actually, the ring officials from the Free State, Gauteng and Eastern Cape started to suspect that something was wrong way before the Rise of Women in Boxing tournament began at Meropa Casino on Friday.
They had to beg to use other people’s rooms when they wanted freshen up before proceeding to the tournament venue. And their worst fears were confirmed when they came back from the tournament to find that indeed no rooms had been booked for them.
Efforts to get a comment from the show organisers failed as Phathutshedzo Dongola, whom we were directed to speak to as his number appeared on the tournament banners, didn’t pick up his cellphone.
